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Packing your bags and buying a one way ticket is always a tough career choice.

Our research shows that although most people move when they are between 35-50, recent trends have shown an increase in the proportion of people on either side of this demographic moving around the world for their role.

For people below the age of 35 especially, an international assignment often provides valuable exposure that can't be gained in your home country and can prove to be a very good addition to your CV, and thus potentially accelerating your mobility up the corporate ladder.

As more employers list international experience as one of their requirements for senior roles, the earlier the employee gains the right experience and connections overseas, the quicker they can potentially move up the corporate ladder.

Most international assignments provide the employee with the opportunity to apply their skills in a new market and also gain a better understanding of markets, processes, legislation and practices. This knowledge is often then applied by internationally mobile staff when they move back to their home locations or onto another location and therefore both the employee and the employer benefits from having people with a more global skillset.

On a personal level, the employee needs to look at factors such as the impact of moving on family as well as other commitments. For example, while most people move between the ages of 35-50, it is also at this time of people's lives that they have other external commitments such as family.

Therefore, while working overseas may offer the employee a fantastic opportunity for career progression, factors such as the education of children or concerns regarding the partner's ability to maintain his/her career whilst overseas also need to be considered.

Most international assignments fall into the bracket of one to three years in duration. Although there has been an acceleration in the proportion of assignments of a short-term nature (less than one year) or even permanent transfers in recent years, most companies still move staff for this core length of time. Indeed, many people who occupy more senior roles within organisations often have multiple stints of one to three years in several countries on their corporate biographies.

This shows the value many employers attach to the experience possessed by globally mobile staff in their senior ranks. Anything less than a year is unlikely to enhance an employee's career prospects since it is difficult to prove that such a short period of time spent overseas has enhanced your skillset sufficiently versus other candidates for a role.

So where to move?

The main global financial hotspots - New York, London, Hong Kong and Singapore - remain the long-standing destinations for the financial services industry.

Shanghai continues to act as the focus of multi-national corporate operations in mainland China and therefore draws a lot of talent. However, the number of roles available here still remains much lower than in the other two Asian powerhouses of Hong Kong and Singapore.

In spite of recent improvement in its economy, Tokyo which was once the epicentre of financial companies' Asian operations, also remains behind these two cities.

Finally, we have seen some heightened interest in frontier markets such as Mongolia and Myanmar, but there are still only a handful of organisations which have operations in these locations. There is still some way to go before Ulan Bator rivals Singapore as a financial jurisdiction of choice.